# Ryan Hall > Black Belt | United States ## Overview **Name:** Ryan Hall **Belt Rank:** Black Belt **Nationality:** United States **Gender:** Male **Weight:** 66 kg ## Bio Ryan Hall was born on the 22nd of February 1985 in Arlington, Virginia – USA. He grew up being a fan of baseball, basketball and (American) football, all sports in which he competed as a youngster. In 2004 he started practicing jiu-jitsu at a mixed martial arts (MMA) gym in New York, named Ronin Athletics with Christian Montes. Grappling was not Ryan’s main concern at the start of his martial arts career, instead, Hall focussed the majority of his training doing Thai boxing. After a few months of constant beatings at the jiu-jitsu class, Ryan decided to allocate more of his spare time to Brazilian jiu-jitsu. On July 2004 Ryan competed in his first BJJ tournament, becoming immediately fascinated with this combat style. So much that he ended quitting school to focus solely on training. Ryan cinched that he needed to move to a bigger team to improve his skills. He decided to move to Lloyd Irvin ‘s gym in Maryland. Lloyd a well known black belt, particularly known for his “over the top” advertising campaigns. Irvin introduced Ryan to a very competitive team with people such as Brandon Vera and Mike Fowler. At Team Lloyd Irvin Ryan’s jiu-jitsu blossomed; his amazing flexibility, his long limbs, his willingness to learn and understanding of grappling mechanics made the right recipe for a fantastic guard. Hall’s name became a constant presence at tournaments all over the country and even abroad. Ryan also became the object of Lloyd Irvin’s numerous marketing campaigns, and it came as a shock to the BJJ community when Ryan decided to split from the team on January 2009, a subject discussed to exhaustion in grappling forums throughout the world. With the split from Irvin, Ryan went on to join Brasa Clube de Jiu-Jitsu , a team led by several historic grapplers. Ryan Hall also decided to open his own academy in Washington – DC, the 50/50 Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. On April 2010 Ryan finally received his (long overdue) black belt from one of his mentors, 2x black belt world champion, Felipe Costa . In 2012, Ryan Hall became an internet sensation overnight after a video was released of Hall defending himself against a threatening individual at a restaurant (see below). The footage was called on Youtube: “Ryan Hall’s Radical Restaurant Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Adventure”, and it showed a man being extremely aggressive and Hall trying to calm down the situation, when it was obvious the situation was not going to improve he completely dominated his opponent in emphatic fashion, delighting anti-bullies all over the world and making the video go viral on social media. After a short spell at mixed martial arts (MMA) in 2006, Ryan decided to get a fresh start at a career in the cage in 2012, enrolling at the Tristar Gym Mixed Martial Arts training program in Montreal, Canada. He represented his new team for the first time in the cage at SLAMM-1 on November 30, 2012, Canada, winning by TKO in the first round and continued competing, being eventually signed by a bigger MMA organization. On 2013, after two of Lloyd Irvin’s students (Nicholas Schultz and Matthew Maldonado) were accused of raping a fellow teammate, Irvin came under scrutiny as it was revealed that he himself had been accused of gang rape in a case that dated back to 1990 ( check link ). To make matters worst, in response to the public interest and outrage on the rape allegations, Lloyd utilized his PR machine to try and suppress the negative publicity he was receiving, publishing at least 8 videos from his rape prevention seminar on his YouTube channel in the hopes of pushing out the negative buzz. He also issued a press release for the same seminar and launched a website under the domain name (address) “lloydirvinrape.com” gaining with this at least one Google listing for the keyword “Lloyd Irvin Rape”. Amidst the anger and shock, some did speak out against the Maryland instructor, including the father of one of Irvin’s top students at the time ( Keenan Cornelius ) and Ryan Hall who wrote an open letter about his views on the case. Ryan Hall vs Wesley Gann ## Achievements - 1st Place ADCC US West Coast Trials (2009) - 1st Place IBJJF Chicago Open (2009*) - 3rd Place ADCC World Championship (2009) - 1st Place IBJJF World Championship (2008 purple) - 1st Place IBJJF World Championship (2007 purple) - 1st Place IBJJF European Open (2008 purple) - 3rd Place CBJJ Brazilian Nationals (2008 purple) - 3rd Place IBJJF World  Championship (2009 brown) ## Lineage - Rolls Gracie - Romero Cavalcanti (Black Belt) - Rodrigo Medeiros (Black Belt) - Felipe Costa (Black Belt) --- **Last Updated:** September 08, 2026 **Data Source:** bjj.space (https://bjj.space/people/ryan-hall)